This invention is directed to an attractant for flies and similar insects for attracting these flies or similar insects to an appropriate bait or trap utilized to control these insects.
The house fly is a major nuisance to homeowners and in commercial areas such as food markets, food preparation areas, dairy barns and animal kennels. Throughout the years several methods have been utilized in an attempt to control the fly population in these areas.
One method used to attract flies involves hanging long strips of a sticky tape from a wall or ceiling. In their normal flying pattern, the flies land on the sticky tape and become permanently attached to it, thus reducing the population of the area. The tapes are rather unsightly which generally restricts their use to industrial or commercial applications.
Over the years several plastic or glass fly traps have been developed. These generally operate on the principle of a fly entering a trap through a funnel like opening and becoming entrapped within a glass or plastic container. The fly is unable to exit from the container because of the small hole at the narrow end of the funnel opening. An excellent plastic trap which utilizes this principle is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,088.
In the traps of the type described in the previous paragraph which have been available to the consumer, the consumer has been instructed to bait the inside of the trap with a food component such as meat, fish or sugar water in order to attract the fly. This makes it somewhat inconvenient for the user of the trap because of the need to maintain quantities of such ingredients on hand. Further, odors emitted by the putrefaction of these components can frequently be very obnoxious thus reducing the number of locations where the traps can be used.
There are many species of flies. The common house fly is scientifically known as Musca Domestica. Other common flies are the Little House Fly, the Blow Fly and the various bottle flies. Collectively these are known as domestic or filth flies. They are generally associated with man and his environment. They live and breed in waste and garbage. Aside from being annoying and repulsive, flies are suspected of transmitting many diseases.
The domestic or filth fly lay their eggs in any warm moist material where their larvae can grow. Such material might be animal waste, garbage, lawn clippings, rotting fruit and vegetables, rotting grains, manures, carcasses of dead animals or any meat product. Breeding and egg laying is started whenever the temperatures are sufficiently warm and breeding material is available. The eggs can hatch within a day and the larvae can pupate after a week or less. The pupal stage can last from 4 to 6 days at which time the adult fly emerges. This adult fly can lay upwards of 600 eggs and is capable of traveling over a geographical area of many square miles. As evident from the above, the complete life cycle under optimum conditions, can be completed in approximately 8 days making the fly a very prolific pest.
Within the last few years certain insects sex hormones generically referred to as pheromones have been developed for use in attracting various insects. Each insect has its own unique pheromones. For many agricultural type insects for which pheromones have been developed, the use of these pheromones have been very successful in controlling the insects. The pheromones are useful because they disrupt the mating cycle of the insects by confusing the male insect with respect to the location of the female insects.
With flies the current state of the art of pheromones is not as developed as for other insects. One such fly pheromone is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,122,165 and is sold under the commercial name Muscamone.TM.. The main difficulty with pheromones for fly lures is the fact that they are only strong enough to attract flies from a very short distance from a trap. In many cases the fly must land almost right on or in close proximity to the fly pheromone before it becomes attracted to it.